Gaim Releases Version 1.0.0

bfree writes "Congratulations to all in the gaim team as they release for download version 1.0.0 (changelog). For those who don't know what gaim is, you could read the full answer on their site but for the lazy: 'Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.' Gaim is also the 2nd most active project on Sourceforge and the 4th most popular on Freshmeat and seemingly all round #1 Free IM client!"

gaim

[twenty-exty-six]

Gaim is easily one of the best open-source apps for non-tech savvy users. Without gaim (and Firefox) I wouldn't have been able to convince some of my friends to try linux.

Re:gaim

[sigaar]

Have you updated your gaim recently. What you describe sound very much like what usually happens every time Yahoo changes something to shut out third party software.

Usually you just have to wait for the next release for gaim and you're good to go again. They release every two or three weeks.

Re:gaim

[jimbolaya]

I've always wondered, how does Yahoo shut out third party software without shutting out older versions of their own software? Do they push updates to their client? If so, couldn't third party software intercept and interpret these updates somehow so as to remain compatible?

Or, am I starting with a false assumption, and do Yahoo IM users have to manually download new software when Yahoo changes their protocol?

Re:gaim

[stefanlasiewski]

Sometimes I think they do shut out their older clients and the web client, but not always on purpose.

During one of the recent protocol changes back in June or July, I think alot of older YM clients were cut off, and people using the YM Web Interface were cut off for a bit also.

Re:gaim

[BladeMelbourne]

as far as windows is concerned is gaim better than miranda?

Yes and no. IMHO it's up to the end user to decide what their IM needs are, and choose based on that.

Miranda [miranda-im.org] is a fantastic program - really small with plenty of plugins. The interface is much more responsive than Gaim - it's a very lean program.

That said, one thing GAIM can do is provide the ability to chat in Yahoo rooms. Miranda sadly can't do that (to the best of my knowledge).

I have both installed - they are both quality open source programs with very active communities.

why 1.0?

[MoOsEb0y]

There isn't a lot of difference between 0.82.1 and 1.0. Why have they decided that this should be version 1.0?

Re:why 1.0?

[Surye]

Long discussion on name change. [sourceforge.net] To sum it up, just because.

Re:why 1.0?

[SLOviper]

I'm not exactly sure why they went to 1.0 either - although it has been much more stable than ever before (since 0.7). I guess they figured that it was good enough to "officially" release.

For those interested, here is the changelog from the sourceforge site:

version 1.0.0 (09/17/2004):
New Features:
* Drag-and-drop buddy support for the Invite dialog (Stu Tomlinson)
* Drag-and-drop buddy support for the Pounce dialog (Stu Tomlinson)
* View Chat log available from the interface (Daniel Atallah)
* Ability to receive offline messages in character encodings
other than ASCII (thanks to Nick Sukharev)
* File transfer status messages printed to conversation
windows (Dave West)
* Display file transfer messages when someone sends you a file
over AIM (Dave West)
* Handle MSN buddy lists more sanely (Felipe Contreras)
* Zephyr can use tzc to run from behind a firewall (Arun A Tharuvai)

Bug Fixes:
* Work around window manager stupidity with new dialog windows (Dave West)
* Compile with gtk 2.5.x (Gary Kramlich)
* Escape invalid characters in log names (Daniel Atallah)
* Fix for clicking add in an msn chat with 2 or more people in your buddy
list (Daniel Atallah)

Re:why 1.0?

[twener]

Because Kopete went to 0.9 recently?

Re:why 1.0?

[lastninja]

And who said Kopeting OSS projects wasn`t good ;).

Re:why 1.0?

[SimGuy]

People have (and we knew this way ahead of the actual release) this horrible misconception that 1.0.0 is Gaim's first major stable release, but for those too lazy to read the discussion on the mailing list, Gaim's versioning is very simple, and 1.0.0 is completely insignificant. We could have started at 12.8.17, but 1.0.0 is a nice place to start numbering from and not break package managers version comparison logic or seeming too completely random....

Example versioning:

1.0.0: First release with this numbering system
1.0.1: No changes to Gaim's API; New features, bugfixes
1.1.0: New Gaim API added; none removed or changed
1.2.0: Same as above
2.0.0: Gaim API changed or removed breaking plugins or anyone using libgaim.
2.0.1: No changes to API; New features & bugfixes
2.0.2: et cetera

As I placed in the topic of #Gaim:

1.0.0! Not special in any way, other than that you should be using it.

Re:why 1.0?

[SimGuy]

Just to be clear, I am not a Gaim developer. I am a patch contributor and plugin writer for Gaim that happens to be very familiar with the project.

Re:why 1.0?

[lintux]

Why does a 1.0 release always have to have a bunch of new features?

It's much better to release 1.0 when the program reaches ultimate stability, usability and reliability. Gaim has been around for a while already, so it's about time that they start calling the program 1.0.

This has the big advantage of actually having a 1.0 release worth using, as opposed to many 1.0 releases with so many bugs (because of all those new features they tried to get in at the last moment) that you'd better wait for 1.0...

Re:why 1.0?

[lintux]

that you'd better wait for 1.0

Err, obviously I meant 1.1 here.

Re:why 1.0?

[Surye]

No, they made it quite clear in the IRC, and in the lists that it has nothing to do with core goals met. Simply wanted a new, more flexible naming scheme then "number of releases" which was broken anyways during 0.59.x

Re:why 1.0?

[DNS-and-BIND]

Personally, I think the first version that's released should be v1.0. All of this "using v0.2934.d.342.beta" crap is freaking stupid. *cough* Firefox *cough*.

Yes, I understand "it's not ready yet". If people are downloading it and using it, it's ready.

Re:why 1.0?

[mdfst13]

The first version should be 0 -- programmers should always count in computer numbers.

Seriously, Firefox may be as ready as any IE release, but that does not make it production software; it just means that IE has never been QAed properly. Fractional (below 1) versions make version 1.0 meaningful. What should we follow the MS scheme: version 1 is utter junk; 2 is better but still lousy; 3 is mostly usable; 3.x and higher are the first versions that are expected to succeed? That's just version inflation.

Re:why 1.0?

[mabinogi]

In the real world, "Production software" is software being used in production.
Not software that the authors think is ready for production.

Firefox and GAIM have both been used "In Production" for a long time now.

Version 1.0 is completely meaningless as any measure of quality or production readiness, so I think it would be far less confusing if the first version placed out for people to download - regardless of its degree of completion - is called version 1. Because that's what it IS.

People are quite capa

Re:why 1.0?

[jimbolaya]

The first version that is "ready for prime time" should be called 3.0. Or maybe 3.1.

Re:why 1.0?

[mrscorpio]

Or 3.11 for Workgroups ;)

on the mac...

[appleLaserWriter]

Should I prefer it to Fire?

Re:on the mac...

[oboylet]

A better question might be: why should I prefer it to adiumx [adiumx.com] [adiumx.com]? Adium is essentially a mac-friendly gaim.

Adiumx has a really straight forward user interface, and feels very mac-like. It supports a laundry list of protocols, but keeps things simple yet powerful in terms of UI.

True, you won't find all the gee-gaws from iChat AV a la video/teleconfrencing, but it's a well written program that does IM extremely well (much better than iChat ... *cough* tabs, easily set up for multiple users of the same computer, etc *cough*).

And it's not resource intensive.

Re:on the mac...

[Trillan]

I tried Fire, I tried Proteus, and I tried Adium. For multi-protocol, I use Adium.

But on a day-to-day basis for 99%+ of my chats, I use iChat. I like the simplicity, the stability, and the way the menu works. Make no mistake, it's a one trick pony... but it does that trick very well... much better, I think, than Adiun.

I am starting to think that both skins and customization are highly overrated. What's needed is a single good skin. The ability to custmoize is nice, but far less important than having a good skin already there.

Re:on the mac...

[CGP314]

I am starting to think that both skins and customization are highly overrated. What's needed is a single good skin. The ability to custmoize is nice, but far less important than having a good skin already there.

Can't agree more. When I used windows and, especially, linux I would spend hours trying to get all the themes to look just right. Then in a few weeks time, I'd feel the need to change it all again.

Now, with OS X, everything looks just right all the time. The only thing I did was remove the br [lordofthecows.com]

Re:on the mac...

[rsax]

The only thing I did was remove the brush metal from safari.

Care to post a screenshot? Please? ;) I'm curious as to how Safari looks without the metal crap. Unfortunately I don't have a Mac yet otherwise I would try it myself.

Re:on the mac...

[Trillan]

Ah, yes, I can see your point about there being no account manager.

My mention of skins was because I simply hate Adium's buddy list. :)

Re:on the mac...

[oboylet]

Becaue as another poster pointed out, there's no readily available mac binary for gaim right now.

If someone wants to experience gaim on os x the answer is AdiumX. While I might not have answered the question that directly in the previous post, how's this for two reasons:

I prefer AdiumX because it has a more simplistic, elegant design than Fire does by default. Your buddy list takes up less screen real-estate in AdiumX, for example. Also, though they are no real use to me, someone might want the extra

Re:on the mac...

[repetty]

> Should I prefer it to Fire?

Dunno. Maybe it doesn't crash as much.

--Richard

Re:on the mac...

[dn15]

There are not many reasons to use it vs. Fire or Adium. Until Gaim for Mac OS X breaks free of X11 (or until X11 itself allows for more integration with the OS) there is no good way to receive notification of new incoming messages.

If X11 apps each automatically got their own Dock icon and could modify their icons to indicate state changes, it would be a different story. :)

Definition of irony

[Toasty16]

I just used Trillian to tell my buddies on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC about gaim 1.0.0

They don't care.

IRC?

[WiseWeasel]

IM clients generally make extremely poor IRC clients, so I'm not surprised it was shunned by them. As for Trillian, WORST INTERFACE EVAR!!! That, and it won't import the AIM buddy list automatically.

Re:IRC?

[arose]

How did you set up the sound?

The most active

[nyri]

In fact, Gaim is the most active projecy on the sourceforge. The list is (from the sourceforges main page):
1 Gaim
2 eGroupWare: Enterprise CollaborationAccepting Donations
3 Azureus - BitTorrent ClientAccepting Donations
4 FCKeditorAccepting Donations
5 phpMyAdminAccepting Donations
6 Compiere ERP + CRM Business Solution
7 OpenWFEAccepting Donations
8 SugarCRM Accepting Donations
9 WinMergeAccepting Donations
10 POPFile - Automatic Email ClassificationAccepting Donations

Maybe being slashdoted increased its activity...

Re:The most active

[TunaPhish]

No, Gaim is almost always on top. They're pretty good about having a two-week release schedule.

You can check out #gaim on freenode [freenode.org] and actually see how active it really is. Most of the developers are there on a daily basis working on stuff.

Re:The most active

[Deliveranc3]

Does it have webcam and voip support?

Come on you nutbars get it together!

Re:The most active

[quelrods]

uh they try for a 2week schedule. I would say they are better at missing their 2week release schedule than making it.

is this really a good metric?

[Speare]

I don't use GAIM, so take this with a grain of salt, and I mean nothing personal to the GAIM team.

It would seem to me that being on the most active list for long periods of time might indicate bloat and haphazard development, just as easily as it could indicate anything else. How is "activity" determined? CVS checkins. I'd rather be a user of a middle-of-the-road team; responsive to input and considerate of new ideas, but not just pouring bucketfuls of changes into the codebase.

Congratulations

[afra242]

I've been using Gaim since the late '90s. I even donated some beer to them way back in the day - it takes me back to my college days.

Thanks guys - it's amazing how much Gaim has expanded. I check regularly for a release and have pushed many people to check it out.

Too heavy..

[thewalled]

gaim lost out to miranda (http://miranda-im.org) for one of my customers.. his problem gaim is too heavy / resource intensive for their workstations (here in india most workstations at still stuck at celeron ~700 or so + 64 MB ram and run 98SE).

miranda on the other hand works quite nicely, btw we use jabber only (no msn/yahoo/icq/oscar support).

Re:Too heavy..

[borud]

Yeah, I've noticed that too: Gaim seems to be extremely CPU-hungry. Which is odd, since it doesn't really *do* anything. Is there some busy-waiting going on somewhere?

Re:Too heavy..

[Motherfucking Shit]

his problem gaim is too heavy / resource intensive for their workstations

To an extent, I can agree with this, and I'm not exactly on a "stuck" workstation. I'm running XP on an AMD 2600+ with 512 megs of RAM. I just installed gaim 1.0.0 to give it a test run. gaim.exe uses about 18 megs of RAM, whereas aim.exe uses about 5 megs and ICQ runs about 4 megs. AIM and ICQ are the only IM services I use, so for me, it makes more sense to run both AIM and ICQ instead of running gaim. The two of them combined use a

Re:Too heavy..

[Motherfucking Shit]

To illustrate my points, I've created a series of screenshots [phplabs.com]. They demonstrate the large amount of screen real estate that gaim takes up on Windows compared to AIM and ICQ, the offset preferences window that gtk generates compared to AIM's small and centered preference window, and the disk space required by AIM, ICQ, gaim+gtk, and AIM+ICQ vs. gaim+gtk.

My conclusion is obvious, but please draw your own. You should definitely install gaim 1.0.0 if you haven't already, even if only to test it out.

Re:Too heavy..

[netsharc]

Actually, if you turn off "Show Buddy Icons" (somewhere in the Preferences), Gaim shows only the 16x16 protocol icons, which makes for a buddy list which is a lot more compact, therefore smaller as well, especially without the ads.

The problem of directory sizes, is that Gaim installs all possible languages -- you can set LANG=?? as an environment variable and get Gaim in that language. I suppose you can delete the unnecessary language files to save space. And from the looks of it, you're using ICQlite. Whatever happened to the full-blown ICQ, which installed a light web-server so people can visit your "homepage" and even chat to you through a Java-Applet of sorts.

Re:Too heavy..

[quantaman]

At thge end of your page with the screenshots

AIM requires about 6.25 megs. ICQ requires about 11.1 megs. gaim requires about 13.9 megs plus 14.4 megs for the gtk files. Install AIM and ICQ, use about 17.5 megs of disk. Install gaim, use about 28.3 megs of disk. If the only messaging services you use are AIM and ICQ, you are better off installing AIM and ICQ, as opposed to installing gaim.

Though if you're already using something gtk based, say gimp, the 14.4M for the gtk files can no longer be blamed on

Re:Too heavy..

[moonbender]

Memory stats can be confusing. Looking at my Miranda (which I love), which is running nearly without any plugins apart from a history viewer, it has a working set of 6 MB and a virtual size of whopping 43 MB. As far as I know, the important number is the working set, that's the amount of physical RAM occupied by the program at the moment, while the virtual size includes stuff that's paged onto the hard drive. I'm not sure, though, as I said memory stats can be confusing.
Sorting by working set size, Miranda

Re:Too heavy..

[Jugalator]

Yeah, it's probably much because of the heavy GTK+ libraries. Yuck.

Miranda's plugin support also rocks compared to what Gaim has to offer, and I really like that Miranda comes with few features to start with so you can make it as complex as you wish, not the IM developers. I know Gaim supports plugins too, but they're not even competing in the same field here, with 5 plugins on their web page compared to 275 for Miranda.

no mac binary

[Leers]

from those of us who don't regularly compile our own software, I don't think gaim qualifies as mac compatible till someone bothers putting a mac binary on their site.

Re:no mac binary

[oboylet]

While its true there's not a readily available binary of 1.0.0, you can always use fink/darwinports to get the latest stable binary, which right now is .8.2.1 here. [opendarwin.org]

I agree, its misleading, and the gtk2/x11 port is butt-ugly, it does work.

For gaim on osx I prefer adiumx [adiumx.com] [adiumx.com].

Re:no mac binary

[knutal]

I don't think gaim qualifies as mac compatible till someone bothers putting a mac binary on their site.

A port of gaim to osx needs a port of gtk first, which is some time into the future, the GTK+OSX project aimed at this but with gtk1.x, not gtk2. Anyway, that project seems far from finished... You can ofcourse install it under X11, or you could try out adiumX [adiumx.com], which uses the core library of gaim anyway.

Re:no mac binary

[repetty]

> Compiling isn't that hard.

Yeah, you're right... when it freaking works.

When compiling doesn't work, you get to have a NEW hobby. Oh what fun.

I've never tried to compile Gaim source, but while you're criticizing this guy, do you butcher your own cows to make your hamburgers? Do you shuck your own corn?

Mac users have a little different expectation on fit and finish than some other computer users so why don't you stop crying.

Re:no mac binary

[Leers]

Yes, I've done the hobby thing. Thats why I gave up trying to compile things. Mostly, I just find it a little disrespectful, not posting a binary to an operating system you claim compatibility to. Its as if its not worth their time making one for anything besides windows and two dozen linux distros. I forgot about fink though.

Re:no mac binary

[Xepo]

Uh-huh. And if someone gave you a cow or corn for free, would you consider butchering/shucking them then? I'm sure you wouldn't be complaining to the guy who gave 'em to you for free that he didn't butcher/shuck them for you.

Keep in mind, gaim is ran by volunteers. I'm sure if you cared to put some cash towards the gaim project, they'd be willing to start compiling mac binaries.

Re:no mac binary

[Jugalator]

Compiling isn't that hard.

So why don't they do it then?

It's not a little used OS when comparing non-Windows operating systems with each others.

And if you are so hung up on a mac binary nothing stoping you from doing it.

I think he was very aware of that, but he wasn't exactly saying "can I compile a Mac binary?" Please read up on the posts better...

Re:no mac binary

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

"So why don't they do it then?"

Because they have no macs? Donate them a nice G5 and you'll probably start seeing mac builds. Or start building them yourself and get on the gaim devel team as the official mac guy?

Re:no mac binary

[nuggetman]

why don't you cry me a river. Compiling isn't that hard.

GAIM is natively an X11 app, and X11 is horribly disjointed from the rest of the OS X interface

Video/audio sound support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, Gaim 1.0... Good...

But, what I _really_ need is video/audio support for MSN, Y! and AIM. I am asking for this for 2 years now, no one in the OSS community has managed to integrate something like that to a multi-IM application.

No, Gnomemeeting is not the same, it is not compatible with the 99,9% of the IM world. It is a conference app, I just need integrated video/audio for MSN, Y! and AIM.

Re:Video/audio sound support?

[Surye]

gaim-vv [sourceforge.net]

Re:Video/audio sound support?

[X-wes]

Gaim VV says:
Your check is in the mail [sourceforge.net].

1.0 and no gaim-vv merge?

[Mmm coffee]

While I'm glad to see gaim moving on to a "stable" number, wouldn't it be smart to wait until the boys at gaim-vv [sf.net] got video and voice chat working? Gaim rocks for an instant messaging client, but can't do the major stupid little things that the "official" clients can do. This may turn off users who see 1.0 and expect it to do that...

Then again, I might be paranoid and need to have my morning coffee.

Re:1.0 and no gaim-vv merge?

[caluml]

Yeah :( I get so many offers from girls wanting me to watch them on their cams, that it sometimes almost pains me to have to disappoint them.
"No, cos I'm not using MSN."
"No, I can talk to you cos I'm using a different client."
"No, I can't download the Windows version."
"Because I'm not running Windows."
"Because I don't want to."
"No, not running a Mac either."
"The spawn of the devil - Linux."
"Hello?"

Re:1.0 and no gaim-vv merge?

[Mmm coffee]

A few months ago one of my friends in Canada wanted to flash me her tits, so I downloaded gaim-vv and started compiling it. This process ended up costing me three days, six comments on their message boards, and a lot of stress. AIM video chat wasn't implemented yet and MSN didn't work for me, but Yahoo did. In fact, Yahoo! video chat worked perfectly. Many kittens died as a direct result of this.

Gaim-vv has about 6 months until it's perfected, IMO. Meanwhile, the gaim authors could have spent that time pol

Re:1.0 and no gaim-vv merge?

[JohnFluxx]

So wait, you think they should never release 1.0 until they have every feature that everyone wants, and it's stable?
And if they don't do this, they are shooting themselves in the foot?

1.0.0 is just a version number scheme change...

[atallah]

Not to burst anyone's bubble... but i've been waiting for this story to hit the front page just so i could!

This isn't a 1.0 release it is a 1.0.0 release: http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?threa d_id=5592699&forum_id=33079 [sourceforge.net]

All it means is that future releases will be in X.Y.Z format. X will mean a change to the API breaking old plugins, Y is any other change, and Z is pretty much meaningless.

my gaim experiences

[bmajik]

i remember when i was in school and my primary workstation was a used IRIX machine.

I went through the pain of getting gtk built on my machine, and actually emailed the gaim people (just 2 guys back then, iirc) some trivial diffs to make gaim not die on irix.

Back in school i think i complained about how linux-centric f/oss software was (nothing written by a linux user ever clean compiled on irix... and not often on solaris..) and gaim was certainly not stellar in this regard..

Now i'm less antsy about such things.. and despite not really like the "penguin pimps" attitude i seem to recall the gaim crew having,
AOL AIM client for Win32 is so bad that installing Gtk32 and Gaim seems like the path of least resistance :)

It's nice that there's a non-AOL AIM client. I'm an IE, Media Player, and XP user, but even I can't stand AOL's installers and apps :)

Re:my gaim experiences

[amorsen]

Back before it was Linux, it was Solaris. I remember trying to keep various Free Software running on Solaris, HP/UX, and Irix on various architectures. Solaris was by far easiest, simply because that was what everyone else used. Irix was the trickiest, mostly because gcc was having much fun on SGI machines back in those days.

Trust me, it has gotten far far better over the last 8 years.

Re:my gaim experiences

[Tezkah]

Instructions for getting rid of it [pchell.com]

As for the fellow below me, its Adware. Spyware, even, but tries to get out of it through a technicality.

Work and offshore developers

[cerberusss]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned Gaim related to offshore work yet. I've been using Gaim extensively to work with the offshore part of the team. Works like a charm. It's not so intrusive as the phone, and it also circumvents language barriers. I'm not exactly Betazoid and sometimes have a problem understanding their English, instant messaging neatly circumvents this.

Now you could say this about any instant messaging client, but Gaim supports a nice bunch of protocols and VERY regularly brings out a new update. There have been a number of problems with Yahoo in the 0.7x series, but these have been gone for long now. I plan on using it for a LONG time to come.

I've wanted to use paypal to donate, but they don't support that; instead they sell stuff on eBay but I find that too much of a hassle.

Re:Work and offshore developers

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

Their donation policy is pretty simple, They don't feel its right to accept money for something they're only partially responsible for, and its impossible to split any donations up to each and every person that ever wrote a patch or a plugin. Instead they prefer donations in the form of documentation, code, or beer.

Gaim rules.

[BrookHarty]

I use Gaim, but a few annoying things.

Normal windows popups when re-connecting, so if you are in the middle of typing, it gets the normal windows treatment of stealing focus. I hate focus stealing popup windows.

MSN re-connects alot, need to hide that...

Be nice if you could change your IM preferences under gaim, most you have to use the real client.

Forced alias's change when the user changes their nick.

Can't change themes without re-installing.

But for an all 1 in one client, its the best.

Re:Gaim rules.

[Hobadee]

<i>Normal windows popups when re-connecting, so if you are in the middle of typing, it gets the normal windows treatment of stealing focus. I hate focus stealing popup windows.</i>
<br /><br />
Continueing with the "this is possible already trend..."
<br /><br />
You can change this. Tools > Preferences > Conversations > Raise IM window on events/Raise chat window on events

Re:Gaim rules.

[ink]

Be nice if you could change your IM preferences under gaim, most you have to use the real client.

Just click on accounts, find the account and you can usually change everything about it (buddy icon, SSL, etc.)

Can't change themes without re-installing.

What? It just uses the default GTK theme; if you change your GTK theme, GAIM happily uses the new one just fine -- no need to reinstall.

But for an all 1 in one client, its the best.

Yep, it _is_.

Re:Gaim rules.

[ImpTech]

> Normal windows popups when re-connecting, so if you are in the middle of typing, it gets the normal windows treatment of stealing focus. I hate focus stealing popup windows.

I believe the Auto-Reconnect plugin has had options to disable this behavior for at least a couple of releases now.

multiple column buddy list?

[chocolatetrumpet]

Am I the only one who doesn't like scrolling through my buddy list?

Most applications, when maximized, will utilize the entire available area to display information. Gaim will leave 90% whitespace. This is weird.

Does anyone want the buddy list to spill into multiple columns feature, or is it just me? Sean said it probably wouldn't happen. :-(

Re:multiple column buddy list?

[chocolatetrumpet]

ps view this demo [ohiou.edu] to see how it is weird.

Re:multiple column buddy list?

[funk_phenomenon]

I found that in a recent revision Gaim doesn't allow me to shrink horizontaly and is stopped based on the option buttons on the bottom of the window. In earlier versions these buttons would overlap to allow the resizing. The white space IS a problem which is unecessary for 99.99% of the time.

That's cool and all, but...

[Parnic]

I won't be happy until 1.0.0.0 comes out...hopefully that will fix the nasty "version number isn't obfuscated enough" bug.

For those with a more text-based outlook

[phaze3000]

Try bitlbee [bitlbee.org] - an IRC to IM gateway. I've been using it for sometime and it's superb, I can use my favourite IRC client (irssi [irssi.org]) to chat to everyone via an ssh session to my box at home, whatever server room I happen to be holed up in at the time.

'License' Issues

[OverlordQ]

Did they ever resolve that whole Window-Binary/Source license bitch-fest they were having before?

just downloaded it

[Cynikal]

i always assumed gaim was just another aim client, never realized it did msn and icq as well... this story convinced me to try it out, and yeah its pretty cool... just needs one little added option... options > preferences > text size > readable.. aside from that i like it.

Gaim still lacks native encryption

[0x0d0a]

You still don't get native encryption with Gaim, and Gaim lacks GPG support for Jabber (as Gabber does). The only way to get support is to download gaim-e, which frequently doesn't build with the current gaim.

Re:Gaim still lacks native encryption

[Deanalator]

gaim-encryption (http://gaim-encryption.sourceforge.net/) is about a jillion times better than gaim-e. It lets me use 4096 bit RSA to talk to all my friends overseas about taking out the capitalist machine.

Re:Gaim still lacks native encryption

[hacker]

Or just use a proper ircd that implemenets SSL from client->server, like our network does. In fact, we're the only public irc network that uses SSL in this way, and all clients support it, without modification (assuming they can support SSL; xchat, irssi, BitchX can).

Another Protocol...

[elFarto the 2nd]

For those of you who are sick of using the Sametime client, Meanwhile is a plugin for Gaim to let you use Sametime.

It's availible from http://meanwhile.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]

Regards
elFarto

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Re:

[account_deleted]

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Re:GAIM has opened a lot of doors

[0x0d0a]

Yes.

Things like:

* VFS functionality (gnome-vfs, kioslaves)
* Sound server (esd, arts)
* RPC (CORBA, DCOP)

should not have an implementation on each desktop.

Some things *should* be implemented that both still lack:

* A standard media player library (libmplayer, basically) that apps in each DE can use.

To their credit, GNOME and KDE have fixed:

* KDE's broken copy-paste due to Qt 2's broken copy-paste.
* Drag-and-Drop incompatibilities -- the two can now drag and drop between each other.

Gaim 1.0.0

[Perdition]

Tried it, liked it, kept it. It's about the nicest thing I can say about software.

GTK bug work around for Windows

[Patik]

It's a shame this nasty bug is still in GTK. When you view a profile that has characters in Symbol or some other weird font, such as a heart or fancy icon, Gaim will crash. The only work around for now is to go to Preferences, Message Text, and turn on "ignore font faces."

but...

[nuggetman]

it's now a 1.0 but there's STILL no proper support for Direct IM with the offical client. is this REALLY that hard to implement properly? I think it's gotten to the point where they simply ignore the lack of support as a bug report.

the #1 ?

[moro_666]

one thing that does them "all", never becames the #1, at least not yet ...

while trying to be effective in all possible ways the config has been getting quite big, but at the same time, some options are grouped together so tight, that you lose either one or another feature that you would like to see.

when i use irc, i wanna have all the "business" in one windows, with different tabs, and no "alters" about any messages, when i do msn or yahoo, i want different windows, on different virtual desktops even, and i do want the popupping effect.

there are actually tons more examples why having it all in one does destroy the features that it would have, when it'd be separated

i use amsn for example while trying to work with people on msn. why ? cause it's far more easier to configure, it works better, looks better, supports stuff that gaim doesn't.

don't get me wrong here, i do use gaim sometimes, but only when i have to yahoo someone, otherwise i keep my fingers away from it, cause it's clumsy and need's yet some more tuning in config/look until you can really say that's an possible alternative to other more advanced clients.

i'll keep my fingers crossed for gaim, as it seems to have a promising future, but a lot of work does have to be done first.

Gaim log analyzer

[RainbowSix]

Here's a half-baked log analyzer [polynomial.org] that I wrote in a weekend. It works with GAIM log files for the AIM protocol format up to about version .72 (I run it on .59.9, the last GTK 1 version).

Here [polynomial.org] is an example of its output on my primary username.

The only thing...

[alexandre]

... keeping me from using this, is that it doesn't support GPG encryption like gabber or psi :-(

if it did, all my friend would switch to GPG! ...What a wonderful worllddd....! hehe

Pronunciation confusing!

[theluckyleper]

I love gaim, and I use it every day, but man it confuses me sometimes. How are you supposed to pronounce it? A bunch of people at work use it, and mention it sometimes in telephone conversations, pronouncing it "game", which I guess is correct (or is it (GEE-AIM?). Sample confusing usage:

THEM: Do you have gaim?
ME: What game? I have lots of games.

OR

THEM: Send me a message, I've got gaim.
ME: So... you want me to send you a message about playing some basketball? You got game?

And so on. How do other people combat this conversational conundrum?!

Fonts are still messed up.

[DroopyStonx]

Sign onto AIM and GAIM at the same time and IM yourself.

The font you see in GAIM is actually a lot smaller than what it really is... so if you're seeing "normal" text im GAIM, your recipient is getting this god awful 18 pt type.

Messenger pictures

[frankie_guasch]

I was trying the other day to make someone switch to gaim. It looks like the best feature people like about messenger is something about adding pictures of yourself.
I find that reason amazing, in addition Messenger comes pre-installed and is a hell [windows-help.net] to uninstall.
Anyway I do use gaim, and we're lucky there is a windows version. Thank you

An idea from the dot - Canvas

[theolein]

Last night someone commenting on the idea of 3D avatars in IM software made the point that these things are fairly useless, but what would be really useful would be a kind of canvas next to the text area where one could just do simple black and white sketching, since a sketch is a wonderful way of getting and idea across when words fail one.

I thought about this and realised some points (which also relate to GAIM to bring this post on topic):
1. There have been some Flash and Shockwave based sketching chat i

At least according to one developer roadmap...

[oldosadmin]

the world ended yesterday [sf.net]

Re:A quck question

[Lussarn]

I guess woluld be that trillian doesn't do serverside contact lists while gaim do. I have not used trillian so I can't be sure and I am not trying to flame.

Re:No bugs anymore?

[seringen]

But a version 1 implies no more bugs, wil there be no bugs in GAIM??

yes, there will NEVER be any bugs in GAIM, EVER!! Even when Yahoo purposely breaks their protocol again, the super hyper gaim fairies will magically fix connectivity for you. We are blessed!

Re:Cool

[losinggeneration]

But by the time you emerge sync I could have already downloaded/configured/made/and installed gaim on my Slackware box. Of course, if you just download the individual ebuild, it'd be close.